OW, MY BACK

I apologize for the lack of posts as my recurring back injury has plagued me since the weekend and it makes me a tad cranky. This has basically forced me to stay at home which is actually not a bad thing as we have a nice house. I'll give you the brief rundown...

Last week saw MOGpackers G and the Kidd move into a new, more subway accessible abode in Queens. Evan, Lurch and I helped them break the place in with a screening of the best Hong Kong film in years, SPL. We also ordered Pizza and food from some place called Sacks (which I later learned is one of my Dad's haunts) and learned very quickly to order multiple apps if you want to feed 4 hungry men. So, kudos to the lads on their new place.

On Saturday, Brandt cancelled on me last minute for the HF experionce moments after my back injury returned, thus making me double cranky. I returned the favour by cancelling last night but that's only cause Irene forced me to rest my back before I did something stupid on the Subway.

So we watched CRASH cause it was on PPV and it's supposedly nominated for an Oscar (I don't really follow those things) and man that movie made me uncomfortable. It's a good movie but it's too much, not in terms of it's content, but in terms of the storytelling, which I felt was a bit too clean for it's own good. Things are too convenient and when you are dealing with such a tricky subject matter such as racism, convenient doesn't always work. The actors, minus of course Ryan Phillipe, are really good, especially Ludacris, who has a future in acting.

In keeping with the theme of uncomfortable movie watching, Lurch and Irene made me watch the documentary TARNATION, a film in which the director uses home video footage that he has shot over the course of his entire life to chronicle his beginnings in rural Texas and eventual life in New York. All of this is centered around his mentally ill mother, a victim of poor mental medicine (read: Shock Therapy) in the1960's who goes in and out of his life while being rasied by his grandparents. I'm not describing it properly but you get the idea. It's a great concept, a great idea, and often very powerful, but in the end, I felt it failed because the director failed to address many issues surrounding the circumstances of his life and I constantly felt like I was only getting a small percentage of what was going on in his life. I was genuinely curious about it and I wanted to know more. In the hands of a more experienced filmmaker this could have been groundbreaking.

There was a loose idea to see MUNICH, but after the two above brow-beating films and constant back pain, the thought of sitting in a theatre for 3 hours while people killed each other was less appealing than it normally is. Instead, stupidly ,we watch something called MUST LOVE DOGS which I stupidly agreed to because hey, Diane Lane is hot and John Cusack can't be in a shit movie (I totally forgot SERENDIPITY) cause there's NO way he could be a paycheck actor. Boy I was wrong. The worst. Ever. It's not even a movie. I think 15 minutes into it I was back on my computer reading comic book message boards. Yes, the film was that bad.

In other random thoughts:

Should 7 year olds have school dances? My 7 year old cousin, a ladies man if there ever was one, has been asked by a girl, Claire, to a school dance this week. I mean, what the hell is that about? I couldn't handle school dances in High School. Are these kids gonna be drinking before? Jesus.

Dominic Dunne (who inspired this blog by the way) has finally returned to Vanity Fair after a long absence, thus making it a magazine worth buying again. However, I bought it and it has Scarlet Johanssen on the cover and man what happened to the chick from GHOST WORLD and LOST IN TRANSLATION that I was aching to go to jail or Tokyo for? She's even naked in the cover and I still no longer find her attractive. Kiera Knightly, who I adore, still needs a bite to eat, but man, Scarlett is so Hollywood that it sickens me. It's like the issue tried very hard to make me dislike women. Sienna Miller has her boobs out in this and yet still manages to look blah. Weird. Bad issue and I usually dig those annual Hollywood issues.

I finally entered the Time Warner Center uptown today. I was not moved. It reminded me of vegas for some reason. The nice new part of Vegas that no one can afford but still walk through. Plus Borders is budget. However, then I had a drink with a French colleague at the Mandarin hotel which had a nice view, sot hat was pretty sweet. But Time Warner? Wack.

This is more than enough for now...

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